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| Clematis montana 3 May 2025 |
My abuelita (grandmother) often told me, “Cuando el diablo no tiene nada que hacer, con el rabo espanta moscas.” This translates to,”When the devil is bored he swats flies with his tail.”
Because I live alone with two cats I have a lot of time to spare so I do a lot of fly swatting. Besides writing my blogs, one of my happy comforts is to walk around my spring garden to see what plant I can cut to scan.
In our old Kerrisdale garden we had an aggressive Clematis montana (honorary brotherhood/sisterhood with bamboo and the wisteria). I managed to take a lovely portrait of Art Bergmann under it.
Clematis montana and Art Bergmann
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| Art Bergmann |
When Rosemary and often went to some Vancouver nursery there was often a desk with a couple of older women who were master gardeners handing out advice or answering questions. Rosemary would nod in my direction with a negative sign of her finger. I would ignore it and go straight to the two women. I would ask them,"How do you pronounce c-l-e-m-a-t-i-s?" Invariably they would answer, “Clemátis”. I would then ask, “And how do you pronounce c-l-i-t-o-r-i-s?” They would then blush and I would then correct them and say, “Both words come from the Greek and they are pronounced with emphasis in the first syllable, thus clematis and….."
I believe that the combination of a flower or plant rarely works well in conjunction with the nude female figure. But once I did see it work. I entered a show in Alberta called Mother Earth. I used Clematis montana on a lovely chest with lovely hands.
There was another occasion were indeed a woman and my hostas went well together.
